


Unquenched

by MajorPidge (ScoracleTrash)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Blood Kink, M/M, Smoking Kink, Vampire AU, Vampires, Vampirism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:41:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26076601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoracleTrash/pseuds/MajorPidge
Summary: A Prux Vampire AU. After a serial killer takes the lives of two coven members, their sire Enric Pryde enlists the help of FBI agent Armitage Hux to protect the rest of his family. Pryde is not shy about his ulterior motives for keeping the young man around.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Enric Pryde
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure how involved this fic is going to get. I may only write a little bit of it at first and then expand it later. It’s mostly a vehicle for vampire smut at this point, but may grow into more...

Much to his surprise, Armitage Hux looked very good in the outfit he had been given.

He never would’ve guessed he’d look nice in a black mesh shirt, or impossibly tight pants, or while wearing smudged eyeliner, but he absolutely did.

Huh. Maybe he should dress like this more often.

Of course, that wouldn’t happen. The only place one dressed like that was at a certain kind of club, and Hux didn’t go to clubs.

Except for tonight, of course. But he was only going tonight to help out his old friend from the academy, who at the last minute lost the opportunity to do it herself. 

Two of the four victims of the serial killer known as the Viper had been found in the alleys around this club, called The Thorn, making it look like it was a favorite hunting ground. 

So tonight, he’d go for her. Look around. Report back if he saw anything fishy. It was important someone went that night, since the bodies were always found on Thursdays. 

It wasn’t the sort of place where you had to have a password to get in, but Hux quickly discovered that if you didn’t know anyone, and didn’t have anyone to introduce you to anyone else, you weren’t going to get anywhere with anyone.

Damn.

Well, maybe the decor could tell him something about the Viper.

He started to take in his surroundings. The main room, with the dance floor, was fairly packed even for a Wednesday. The lights and fog descending from the ceiling were red, and the walls were a dark burgundy. The people moving about in strange, swirling ways were all dressed somewhat differently, but with a few unifying themes. A swarm of black and elaborate hair and dramatic makeup. Honestly, Hux had never been aware there were so many kinds of gothic aesthetic before.

It was to his chagrin he noticed he had gone a little light on the accessories that night. Jewelry and extra leather or vinyl seemed par for the course, and he was underdressed. No wonder no one was talking to him. He looked like he didn’t have a clue in the world how to dress properly for a night out at The Thorn.

At the end of the room, a set of stairs split and climbed to a number of tables that sat in alcoves, some with chiffon curtains drawn, others open. These, you probably had to reserve in advance, but a trip to the bar for a tonic water and lime gave Hux a cover for stumbling around with no apparent aim along the catwalks that connected them. Poor thing was just drunk and lost.

He hadn’t noticed that he had been watched the entire time. That at the opposite end of the room from the stairs, on the upper level, was a larger table that was never reservable, because it belonged exclusively to the owner and his associates. It wasn’t until Hux was stumbling around fake-drunk upstairs that he even noticed the table.

And then he saw him.

*  
Enric Pryde fondly recalled a time when you could dress in velvet and furs and not be considered an outlier. Fashion outside of subcultures had really lost a lot of its sparkle in the past century or so. He blamed a lack of imagination in the dominant cultures, he blamed the diminished prestige of the aristocracy, he blamed a lot of things, actually, but he blamed nothing so much as the fact that human beings were simply boring. He hadn’t been interested in an individual human being in decades. The new millennium seemed to suck all the life out of them.

And sucking all the life out of them was his job.

It would’ve just been another uninteresting night drinking old wine and reminiscing with his coven, had the ginger not walked in.

Underdressed, stiff, uncomfortable. The look of law enforcement about him. Itchy in his mesh, chafing in his leather, constantly checking for a side arm that wasn’t there. Went to the bar and ordered no alcohol, just something to make it look like he was drinking.

This was actually intriguing.

The closer he came, the more intrigued became Pryde. He was a tall, thin man with red-orange hair and eyes that were born for a little eyeliner around them. Honestly, with a little help, he could look the part he was trying to play perfectly. Flawless, white skin. Large hands. Long legs. A long torso. 

He did an admirable job of acting drunk as he ran into the edge of their table. Parnadee stood and squared her jaw, but Pryde put his hand on her arm and bade her silently sit back down.

“Having a little trouble finding your way?” He asked Hux.

“Hmm? Oh, nah, nah, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“Have a seat.”

*  
He was asking him to sit down.

The man in a smoking jacket with a high graying hairline and sharp blue eyes, with a voice like incense smoke and a cigarette and holder in his left hand, was asking Hux to sit down at his table.

This probably wasn’t something the young man should pass up. Information, and all that. He seemed important.

He sat.

“Give us some privacy will you?” The man asked the four others gathered around him. Parnadee raised her eyebrows, but she herded the others out nonetheless and closed the curtains, standing in place outside them like a guard.

“I’m Enric,” he said, leaning on his elbow and flicking his cigarette.

“Armitage,” Hux said, still faking drunk.

“Cut the act, will you? I know that’s just tonic and lime.”

Hux flushed and looked down. Shit.

“So what agency are you?” 

Shiiiiiit.

“FBI,” he said quietly, “I’m supposed to be blending in, but I’m a little…”

“...Underdressed, yes. But the base layer is a fine one.” Enric smirked.

Hux coughed. Up close, this man was probably the most attractive to him that he had ever interacted with, and it was just making the awkwardness of the encounter worse.

“It’s that serial killer, isn’t it? The Viper?”

Hux hesitated before nodding. “I’m not actually on the case. I’m scoping out the club as a favor for a colleague.”

“The two victims found in the alleys. They were like children to me. I...have unorthodox living arrangements. I live with a chosen family, if you will. There were nine of us. Now there are seven. I’m not losing any more,” he set his cigarette down in the tray, “Introduce me to your colleague, please. I would like to help in any way I possibly can.”

“You...live with seven people?”

“I do.”

“That you’re not related to?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean to judge, it’s just…”

“It isn’t a sexual thing. We’re bonded in other ways. I sort of...collect strays.”

“I see,” Hux wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t press.

Silence passed between them, and Enric took a sip of wine. Hux began to notice that every so often, along with the music, most of the people on the dance floor were yelling something.

“What are they saying?” He asked.

“Reach out and touch faith.”

“Why?”

Enric looked at him with blank disbelief, “You don’t know the song? This is a remix, of course, but everyone knows this song.”

Hux shifted in his seat and looked down. He didn’t know why exactly he was embarrassed, he didn’t participate in this scene, and yet he was.

“I forget sometimes I run in particular circles, I suppose,” said Enric.

“What circles are those?”

Enric just snickered.

“I...It’s a very nice club. I mean, I could actually see myself coming back for the music, the atmosphere. Even though I don’t really dance.”

“I don’t dance either. Not like this. I maintain it precisely for the atmosphere. It’s...invigorating.”

“Yeah, it...kind of is.”

“I’d like to meet your colleague,” he went on, “But I would also like to talk to you somewhere better suited to deep conversation. I’ll be blunt, Armitage, you’re a very attractive young man, and I’d like to get to know you. See if I can’t broaden your horizons a little bit. I’d be very pleased if you’d accompany me to Vine this Friday. At the very least, we can talk about music. I have lived through quite a few of the darker musical movements.”

Hux looked positively panicked. This was not what he had expected at all, but perhaps he should’ve, being invited to an owner’s table at a club on his first visit, especially looking out-of-place as he did. The man was attracted to him. He hadn’t dated in so long...what do you even talk about at a place like Vine, an expensive wine bar?

“I…”

“Come on,” Enric picked up his cigarette again and took a drag, “What have you got to lose?”

He heard it leave his lips, but he didn’t recall telling his mouth to say it,

“Nothing.”


	2. Chapter 2

Vine was dark and cozy, Hux recalled from a previous hookup some time ago. He took the train there, still in his work suit, and met Enric. The older man took both of his hands as he arrived and smiled broadly.

“I’m so pleased you could make it. I know how unpredictable law enforcement is.”

They were escorted to their table, and Hux began to thoughtfully peruse the extensive list of by-the-glass wines as if he had the slightest idea what he was looking at.

“How do you like wine?” Enric asked, “Dry or sweet?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Hux laughed a little, “If I drink it I just order whatever’s at the top of the list, but I don’t usually drink it.”

“This 1984 Pinot Noir is a good starter red,” Enric leaned over and tapped a finger next to a selection, “Not too bold. Very balanced.”

“1984. My year, too,” Hux said with a laugh.

“A good year. I recall it well.”

“What were you doing in 1984?”

“Basking in peak 80s culture,” he laughed as well, “Ghostbusters and Terminator and Band Aid and everyone drawing George Orwell comparisons. The Soviet Union boycotting the Olympics, all that.”

“Right, but what were you doing?”

He gave him a bit of a smirk.

“Why don’t we worry about that after we get our drinks, hm?”

It wasn’t long until they had them, and Hux repeated his question before sniffing at his wine. He knew you were supposed to sniff it, at least.

“I was watching the gothic subculture come into its own in various clubs in London. I met Trach there, I’ll introduce you at some point, he was a drug addict who wanted a way out. I helped him find it.”

“Your first stray?”

“Far from the first,” Enric took a sip, “Oh, that’s good. I always forget sometimes the simplest are the most intriguing.”

“And you insist it’s not a sex thing.”

“It’s not,” he said, “They’re like my children. You’re honestly the first person I’ve been attracted to in a while, the first person I’ve been intrigued by.”

Hux was getting vaguely culty vibes from that, but his hormones were raging too strongly for him to think much of it.

“So what is it, then?”

Enric sighed, seeming to consider for a moment, before saying, “We’re a coven.”

“A coven?” Hux asked, “Like witches.”

“Vampires,” Enric replied, “We’re vampires.”

Hux looked puzzled for a few seconds, a pregnant pause, and then he laughed, “Oh like the fetish! Sanguinary or psychic?”

Enric had to smile at that. How utterly adorable.

“I’m impressed you know the terms,” he said, “Sanguinary, but not the way you’re thinking. We’re not just normal people drinking each other’s blood, we’re actual vampires.”

Hux looked puzzled again, then laughed again, “Good one, good one.”

“Right, we’ll make it a running gag then, shall we?” Asked Enric, “I was born in 1730.”

Hux snorted, “What did you think of the American revolution?”

“A bit of an overreaction, if you ask me, but no one did. It provided my current home, so I suppose I can’t be too disdainful.”

“I like your sense of humor, Enric. You’re bone dry.”

“As the grave,” he pulled out his cigarette holder and a case and asked if Hux minded, offering him one.

“None for me, but go ahead.”

“I don’t blame you,” Enric lit his, “I wouldn’t if I didn’t have indestructible lungs.”

“Well, when you’re already dead,” Hux chuckled.

“Exactly,” Enric inhaled and then blew smoke like a particularly elegant dragon, “So, Armitage, are you attracted to me? I assume you are, because you accepted my invitation for a date, but I want to be certain.”

“I’m, uh,” he coughed, “Very attracted to you.”

“What a coincidence,” Enric smirked, “I’m very attracted to you, too.”

“I haven’t been in a relationship in a long time,” Hux confessed, “I’ve had some hookups here and there, but I’ve been married to my work for a while. I don’t know how much time I’d have for someone.”

“I can be low maintenance,” Enric flicked away a bit of ash, “After all, there are so many ways to keep in touch nowadays. It wouldn’t be hard to keep electronic tabs on you and be in your business at all hours.”

“You keep making me laugh,” said Hux, “I haven’t laughed this much in a while.”

“Then maybe you need to make more time for things other than work.”

“Oh, I know I do, but it’s hard to. The Bureau demands a lot from a person.”

“So does owning a business. You might find our lifestyles aren’t so incompatible. We’re both busy men who nonetheless share a mutual attraction and...I hope...a growing regard for one another.”

“Certainly,” said Hux.

“So let’s talk about sex,” said Enric, and Hux blinked, “Oh, don’t give me that. It’s an essential part of any relationship I enter into. I like to discuss it frankly and early. Top, bottom, vers?”

“Uh...bottom. Versatile bottom.”

“Perfect. Versatile top,” he blew smoke again, “Versatile power top, usually.”

Hux made a squeaking noise.

“So you like aggressive?”

He nodded.

“How do you like pain?”

Hux choked on his wine. “I mean...I do, but no one’s ever asked me that. Why did you ask me that?”

“Well why not? We were talking about sex.”

“Well, yes, but you don’t just point-blank ask someone if they like pain.”

“Is there another way to find out if someone likes pain?”

“I don’t...know? It just doesn’t seem like a first date sort of question.”

“It is for me. I want to know from the beginning if I’m getting into something I’m going to enjoy. What’s the point of starting a relationship with someone if they’re not going to enjoy the same things that I enjoy? I happen to like inflicting pain. I need a partner that enjoys receiving it.”

“Well, I do, but…”

Enric took another drag and exhaled smoke in Hux’s general direction.

“What is it you want me to tell you, boy? My dear, innocent child, I am the thing of your deepest dreams and your darkest nightmares. I can give you unimaginable pleasure and unbearable pain if you’ll only give yourself to me, body and soul. Psh. That’s old, and it’s tired, and it never works. I can’t just barge into your life and tell you that you belong to me now and I’m going to do whatever I want with you. You have to negotiate this sort of thing.”

Hux blinked. He had a point. But also, in the right context, he might not have minded being told the other things.

“I suppose,” he said.

“Well, when exactly do you bring up that you like pain?”

“I usually don’t. If I dare to, I just tell someone to hit me in the heat of the moment.”

“Ugh. You’ll never get anywhere that way. You’ll never have any fun. You have to plan these things in advance. Figure out what you like. You’ve probably never even been hit with a cane.”

“No.”

“A flogger?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been tied up?”

“Yes.”

“In knots you couldn’t get out of yourself?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been scratched?”

“No.”

“Bitten?” 

“Yes.”

“Any blood?”

“No.”

“Bruises?”

“No.”

“Do you want any of that?”

Hux turned red as his wine and looked down, “Yes.”

“And yet you’ve never gotten it, because you’ve never asked for it, and every idiot you bring home from a normal bar is going to think you’re bluffing when you tell them you want them to hit you. Have you ever been fucked? I mean, really fucked? I mean fucked so hard you can’t even walk anymore, fucked so hard you forget your own name, fucked so hard you see the entire cosmos explode behind your eyelids?”

“...No.”

“Ugh, what a waste!” He threw his cigarette down, “What are they even teaching these days? Do you have any idea what I could do to a body like yours?”

Hux downed the rest of his wine and threw caution to the wind. “I’d honestly really like to find out, Enric.”

“See?” Enric took a sip of his own wine, “And we never would’ve gotten to this point if I hadn’t candidly asked you, no holds barred, if you enjoy receiving pain.”

“Touché.”

“So you’re coming home with me, yes?” He put out his cigarette.

Hux chewed his bottom lip. This was it, wasn’t it? He could do the prudent thing and get back on the train and go home, or he could go home with this enigma he still barely knew, who made deadpan jokes about being a vampire and smoked smuggled clove cigarettes and knew everything about wine and kept a coven of tragic histories around him like a family.

“Yes.”

“Excellent,” Enric smirked, “I’ll pay the check.”


	3. Chapter 3

Enric drove a 1940s Rolls that he described as ‘the only car I’ve ever liked the look of.’ Hux was somewhat confused to find that he took him to a somewhat dilapidated part of town, wherein the only pristine building was a heavily-fenced, early 20th Century middle school.

“You live in a school?”

“Repurposed,” he said as he pressed something in his pocket and a gate opened to admit them into the property. Even in the dark, it was obvious things were well-kept by an avid gardener.

“Really selling the whole cult thing, aren’t you?” Hux asked.

“We’re not a cult, we’re a coven,” Enric said, giving him a bit of a look as he pulled under an awning, “If you think I’m running a cult, what are you doing walking into my compound?”

Losing all my senses in a haze of velvet and wine and cigarette smoke, thought Hux, but he said, “I’m only teasing you.”

Extensive work had been done inside. It no longer looked anything like the sort of sterile environment of a school.

“I needed something that could house all of us,” Enric explained as they walked down a dimly-lit hallway, “It was less expensive and more customizable to buy and refurbish a forgotten school than it was to try and build or locate some mansion. Besides. People in this country haven’t built decent-looking houses since the 1920s.”

Huxhad to agree with that.

He led him into a sitting room, decorated in purple and black, where three people were gathered. One of them was the tall, dark-skinned woman Hux had seen stand guard over them at the club on Wednesday.

“Bellava Parnadee,” Enric said, “Armitage Hux.”

She shook Hux’s hand.

“Nice to formally meet you,” she said in an accent, “You must rate, to be taken out and brought home, rather than just entertained at the club.”

Hux blushed a bit, “I don’t know about that.”

“He does,” said Enric, “As highly as any of you when I met you. Bellava is the one who watches over us all. Keeps us safe. As safe as we can be in these times, anyway. When you introduce me to your colleague I’ll connect them; we’ve been enhancing security features at the club.”

Enric gestured to a dark-haired young woman sitting in a chair with her back to a gramophone that was playing music Armitage didn’t recognize, but liked.

“Tishra,” he said, “She’s the gardener. Everything growing on the property is hers, except the roses. Those are mine. She also keeps bees and makes mead with it. Remind me in the morning and I’ll get you a bottle.”

“Nice to meet you,” she nodded at Hux, who nodded back. 

“And this is Trach, who I already mentioned,” Enric gestured to a shirtless young man in leather pants splayed out on a Victorian settee.

“So are all vampires goths?” Hux asked with a laugh.

“Just the fun ones,” Tishra smirked.

Bellava looked to Hux, “He tells everyone he likes that we’re vampires almost immediately,” she rolled her eyes good-naturedly, “I assume he’s been similarly blunt with you about other things.”

Hux blushed again.

“Enric, aren’t you ever afraid you’re going to scare off someone you want to keep around?” Asked Trach.

“If they’re scared off, I don’t want them around,” he took Hux’s hand, “Come, dear, you can meet the others in the morning.”

Ok, no weird unison greetings, no creepy uniform, open to outsiders, no giant pictures of the leader in every room...maybe they weren’t a cult. Maybe they were just a strange sort of commune, but for goths.

Enric led Hux up a grand staircase in the foyer of the building and onto the second floor, down another hallway, and into a sitting room with no one in it.

It was lush and more muted than the one downstairs. Smaller, more intimate, dark red like the club.

“I really could get used to this aesthetic,” Hux said as he took a seat.

“I’m surprised you’re so unfamiliar with it.”

“Well, I’m not completely unfamiliar. I mean, I’ve seen vampire movies, and things like that. But I didn’t really have a rebellious phase. It wasn’t allowed. I never wore eyeliner and listened to obscure music, never had a chance. My biggest act of rebellion was going into the FBI instead of private legal practice.”

“Well, aren’t I lucky that you did chose to rebel in such a way? Otherwise I never would’ve met you.”

“You really...think you’re lucky for having met me?”

“You’re open-minded. You appreciate my humor. You didn’t treat me like I was a total lunatic when I told you I run a vampire coven. And you’re utterly gorgeous, darling,” Enric sat beside him, “How much luckier can I get?”

“I could also be a goth?” Hux laughed a bit.

“Oh, you’re a goth, dear, you just don’t know it yet,” Enric said, “You work in a field where you spend all your time thinking about death and the dead. You wear black almost every day. You have an appreciation for over-the-top Victorian aesthetics, you didn’t run screaming from your first time in a goth club, and you’re dating a vampire,” he lit himself a cigarette, “It’s only a matter of time before I have you humming Depeche Mode.”

“Depeche Mode!” Hux said, suddenly recalling, “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I listened to that song from the club. I can’t believe I had never heard it before; it was apparently so popular.”

“Did you like it?”

“I did!” He grinned, “I want to listen to the rest of the album.”

“If you liked that, I can definitely make you a playlist of other things to try,” Enric inhaled smoke, then exhaled it, “That kind of droning vocal is a staple of formative goth and post-punk.”

“Post-punk?”

“I’ll write you up a little thing. A blurb. Is that the word? Blurb? A blurb about it. Basically, you had the punk movement, and then certain movements that grew out of it. Post-punk was experimental, it was actively trying to be weird and unorthodox. It’s one of the last times in modern history I can recall a movement being truly creative in its counterculturalism.”

“So do you study movements, or something?” That was a little culty.

“From an armchair,” he said, “I’m no expert. I just like tracking the way culture ebbs and flows. What passes for culture nowadays, at least. I know, I’m a cliche, an old man who doesn’t like what the youngsters are up to, but really, when you’ve seen the pinnacle of what the centuries have to offer, how can you settle for ‘yeet?’”

Hux laughed, “I’ve always been interested in history. I probably could’ve studied it, if I didn’t want to go into the FBI. I always liked ancient history the best.”

“Oh, the friends I could introduce you to!” Enric crowed, “You’d love Tarkin. You might say he knows as much about Ancient Rome as an Ancient Roman. He’s difficult to pin down, though. Always off on archeological digs.”

“Archeology sounds so fascinating. I’d like to meet him.”

“Yes, I’ll arrange it, but not until you’re well and truly wrapped around my finger, or he might try to steal you out from under me.”

“Is he in the coven, too?”

“No, he’s solitary. Always has been. He’s the one who introduced me to...well, to being a vampire.”

“Your sire, then? Is that what they call it?”

Enric grinned a little, “So you do know a bit of lore.”

“I’ve watched my share of horror.”

“Well, then, we must clear up some misconceptions. First of all...We can go out in daylight, we just can’t use our powers actively unless it’s night. We can eat human food, but we can’t digest it, so we just vomit it up afterward. It isn’t pleasant, so most of us just stick to drinking human drinks. And we don’t all have the same abilities.”

Hux smiled, “You’ve given a lot of thought to this.”

“Yes, well. Active imagination,” he set his cigarette down, “Although lately, I’ve just been imagining things I’d like to do to you.”

Hux blushed. “I’ve been imagining things, too.”

“Tell me, boy,” Enric purred, “Let me hear your desires, so I can make them real.”

Hux shivered at the thought of confessing his thoughts. “I will. But you have to be gentle with me.”

“My pet,” Enric draped his arm around Hux, “I shall treat you as a newborn lamb.”

Hux took a deep breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Muahahaha cliffhanger prepare yourselves for smut.


	4. Chapter 4

“I don’t even think I can make it to the bedroom,” Hux said, “Even if it’s just through that door. I want you to bend me over the arm of this sofa and absolutely wreck me. I want you to choke me and pull my hair and degrade me and I...can’t believe I’m saying this out loud.”

“Well, this is real progress, isn’t it?” Enric said in surprise, “Opening up so much already.”

“You’ve been so frank with me. It makes me feel safe. At least, safer than I feel with anonymous barflies.”

“That is ultimately my highest goal. To let you be vulnerable with me and to be able to be vulnerable with you.” He took Hux’s hand, “So will you let me?”

Hux nodded. 

“Good,” Enric leaned in, his lips near the young man’s own, “I would very much like to kiss you, Armitage. May I do that?”

Hux was panting with need, eyelids heavy as he nodded. 

“Yes,” he said, “Yes, please.”

Enric closed the space between them. 

The vampire could taste the slightest hint of the young man’s blood through the thin tissues of his mouth. It was an awful tease, but he would wait. He would wait until the right moment, until Hux couldn’t go along with the joke any longer, and simply had to be convinced of the truth. 

Enric hoped the moment came soon. He hated feeling like he was lying to someone he was beginning to care for. 

“Have you ever had a clove cigarette?” he asked when they parted. 

Hux shook his head. 

Enric took a long drag, set his cigarette down, and put his hand at the back of Hux’s head, holding him while he kissed him again and exhaled spiced smoke into his mouth. Hux inhaled as soon as he realized what was happening, and when Enric pulled away, he coughed once. 

“That’s nice,” he said, “I haven’t smoked since college.”

“It’s not a habit I recommend to the living,” Enric’s eyes glinted. 

“So when are you going to be rough with me?” Hux was breathless with anticipation. 

“In just a moment,” Enric said, putting out his cigarette, “Say red if you want me to stop.”

“Ok.” The hair rose on the back of Hux’s neck. How rough could a first time get?

Suddenly, Enric took hold of Hux’s chin and squeezed just enough to begin to hurt, “What have you gotten yourself into, boy?” He snickered, “You have no idea the devil in me.”

“I thought that kind of talk never worked.” Hux panted. 

“Not for introductions,” Enric whispered in his ear, “But once the spider has the fly…” he bit down on Hux’s lobe, hard, and then began to pull his shirt collar aside to get at his throat. 

Hux scrambled out of his jacket and tie, letting Enric work at his shirt. 

“If only,” purred the older man, “There were some way to preserve this beauty from decay forever.” He was smirking the most wicked smirk Hux had ever encountered. 

“I guess you could make me a vampire,” the ginger laughed breathlessly. 

“Oh, you’re not ready for that. But maybe. Maybe even soon.”

He bit down on Hux’s neck without fangs, sucking the skin and leaving a bruise. 

“Hungry?” The young man asked. 

“For you, starving. Flesh will have to substitute for blood, tonight.”

“You can make me bleed,” Hux said.

Enric’s fingernails suddenly seemed sharper than they should’ve been as he raked them down his conquest’s smooth chest. They drew the slightest droplets of blood as they skidded across the surface of his white skin. 

The man leaned down and licked the seeping redness, groaning as he did so. 

“Like a comet vintage,” he sighed, “Yes, I’ll be having more of you.”

And then his hand snaked into Hux’s hair, and with a jerk he turned him over and shoved him toward the arm of the sofa. 

“I don’t even get to see you?” Hux whined. 

“Patience, pet,” Enric caressed his hips as he slid his trousers off of him, “No need to rush things. We have all the time in the world to indulge in one another.” His nails danced lightly over the delicate skin of Hux’s lower back, “Wait here.”

Hux closed his eyes and let his head hang, let himself anticipate what was coming. He assumed Enric left the room for lube, which he did, but it didn’t occur to him that the self-proclaimed vampire might also be slaking a thirst for blood behind the closed door as well. 

And with no trace of it on his lips, Enric’s secret was safe. 

He slid into Hux slowly at first, just the first stroke. And then he gripped the young man’s shoulders hard, and thrust into him with a force that made him whimper. 

He didn’t let up. Hux had no chance to catch his breath, caught up in the punishing rhythm from hips stronger than he had expected. He reached down to stroke his cock, and Enric leaned over him. 

“That’s it, jerk your cock for me, boy, but don’t you dare come. I want it for myself, I’m going to swallow it all, so if you waste a drop of it I’ll make you sorry. I don’t care if it means you edge until you cry.”

“Yes,” Hux said through gritted teeth, “Yes, sir.”

Enric’s hand wrapped around Hux’s throat and his nails dug into the skin as his fingertips pressed on his choke points, “Why don’t you call me Daddy, my obedient little toy?”

Hux had to let go of his cock to keep from coming then and there. “Yes, Daddy,” he gasped. 

Enric’s thumb slipped in between the young man’s lips, and Hux nipped and sucked at it until it was drawn away and the hand from his throat moved to his hair, gripping like reigns on an unruly horse. 

“I want you to degrade me, he says,” Enric snickered, “Very well. My filthy little slut, do you like being fucked like a rag doll?”

“Yes! I like it! I like being fucked.”

“Such a wanton little hole, too. I bet you’d let me stretch you wide, wouldn’t you? Leave you open and helpless and gaping like the come-dripping whore you are.”

“Yes! I would! I would, I’d let you do anything!”

“Mm, what I’d most like you to do is tell me what owns you.”

“Your cock owns me, Daddy,” it was little more than a whimper. 

Enric would never keep Hux against his will, of course, but he would be loathe to let him go, would use every trick to keep him. Obedient, slutty, with a tight hole and absolutely delicious blood...He was absolutely perfect. 

Nails raked down Hux’s back, followed by a tongue that greedily picked up every drop of blood that was drawn. The young man continued to edge, lost in pleasure, eyes rolled back into his head. 

And then Enric came inside of him, and the next thing he knew he was on his back, the older man’s mouth around his cock. 

God, it felt so good. He had never just relaxed into the act of sex before, never let himself enjoy it quite like this, and it wasn’t long until the ravenous sucking resulted in him reaching release and sinking down into the indulgent softness of the cushions beneath him. 

Enric kissed along his neck to his ear, where he whispered, “Did you like that? Hm?”

Hux wrapped his arms around the man’s back and pulled him close, “I could answer a few of your questions from earlier quite differently now.”

Enric laughed, “Yes, I’d wager you could,” he kissed the ginger’s lips in an unhurried sort of way, “You’ll stay the night, of course.” It wasn’t a question. 

“Oh...yes, if you want me to.”

“I absolutely do,” Enric trailed a few kisses over Hux’s collarbone before he sat up and pulled the young man with him. Together they stood and went into the next room, where Enric drew heavy curtains around an ebony bed and pulled Hux into an irresistible embrace amidst velvet and silk. 

“This is like some kind of fantasy,” Hux sighed, “Although I’m surprised at the lack of a coffin.”

“Those things will give you a crick in your neck,” he said with a laugh, “Although Nastia has a coffin bed. She’s the most morbid of any of us. Doctors are desensitized.”

Hux grinned at that. He knew a couple of morbid medical examiners. 

“Now, get some rest, boy,” Enric said, patting Hux’s back, “You don’t need enhanced perception to see you could use some decent sleep. You’re watched over here.”

It was comforting in a way Hux hadn’t realized he needed, and he felt strangely safe as he drifted off in the older man’s wiry arms.


	5. Chapter 5

In the morning, Hux awoke for the first time in his life to find himself in someone’s arms. It was dark in their sanctuary, and so he pulled back the curtain closest to him in order to let light in. 

True to what Enric had said about vampires not being affected by daylight, he thought with a laugh, bright sunlight was streaming through the windows. As he looked back over his shoulder he saw the grey-haired man’s eyes were open.

“Good morning,” Hux said with a smile. This was nice. He could do this again. It would be nice.

“Good morning,” Enric pulled him down and kissed him with languid passion, “Sleep well?”

“Better than I can recall in some time,” the ginger said, “Although I’m absolutely starving. Anything to eat around here?”

In Enric’s sitting room, Hux found an array of take-out boxes full of various things from a rather chic brunch spot in the up-and-coming district not far from the converted school.

“Excuse me while I hit peak millennial,” he said, picking up a slice of avocado toast. He was wrapped in Enric’s spare robe, deep blue velvet that suited his coloring. Enric was beside him, drinking a glass of champagne, in a deep red robe of the same cut.

After a moment, Hux turned to the older man.

“You know, you can eat breakfast. I had you inside of me. You don’t have to starve yourself to sell the vampire thing.”

“I told you,” he said, “I am an actual vampire. I can eat human food, but I vomit it back up twenty minutes later. I don’t enjoy it. I avoid food on all but the most special of occasions.”

Hux set his toast down and gave him a look. “Ok, the joke’s worn out.”

Enric sighed. This was the moment of truth.

“You really want me to have breakfast with you?”

Hux nodded.

“Then do you want me to go and get some blood from my stash, or do you want me to feed off of you?”

Hux blinked.

Enric licking blood off his chest the night before had been incredibly hot. But still, this was a bit much. He really had his heels dug in about this fantasy. But he might as well indulge him just this once. Then Hux could go home and try to forget this strange encounter ever happened.

“Go ahead,” he said, “Feed off of me.”

Enric seemed to relax a little.

“So what do we do?” Hux asked, “Do we need a knife, or a syringe, or what-“

Before he could finish the sentence, Enric was kissing across his neck, and then there was a sensation of pain, and then…

And then Hux felt for a brief moment as if he had just taken a very pleasant and fast-acting sedative. He relaxed into Enric’s arms and they caught him as he slackened against the back of the sofa. He didn’t feel any pain, but he did feel slightly dizzy, and he noticed as the older man pulled away from him and dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief. 

Hux sat up slowly. The dizziness remained, but the sedative sensation was gone.

And suddenly what had just happened occurred to him. His hand flew to his throat and felt around for the two tiny puncture wounds that were already coagulating.

“You really are a fucking vampire, aren’t you?” Hux asked in a squeaking voice, “Vampires are...real?”

And he fainted.

When he came to, a woman with a sharply sculpted face and light, piercing eyes was leaning over him.

“There he is,” she said with a smile, looking up toward someone else, “Just a little shock combined with the blood loss. Get the rest of his breakfast in him and he’ll be fine.”

“Thank you, Nastia,” Hux heard Enric say. The young man looked up to see he had been laid out on the sofa and Enric had moved to a chair.

“Bit of a surprise, was it?” Nastia’s accent was British, like Hux and Enric’s, but unlike theirs, was unrefined.

“You could say that,” he moved to sit up.

“Shh, slowly now,” she said, “Don’t give yourself a head rush.”

“You’re the doctor?” He asked.

She nodded, “University of London, class of 1935.”

Hux laughed weakly, “1935. Because, you know, vampires. You’re all vampires. Real, actual vampires.”

“Yes, love,” she nodded, “We are. I’ll leave you two,” she stepped away.

When they were alone, Hux looked at Enric.

Hux’s concrete understanding of the world was falling apart faster than a gingerbread house on one of those baking shows.

Vampires existed. And he was sitting in a room alone with one right now. One that hadn’t killed him. Didn’t seem to want to kill him. Seemed to want to be in a relationship with him.

He lived in a coven with nine, now seven, other vampires from various other times and places, and ran a goth club while living in a converted school.

He had absolutely fucked Hux’s brains out the night before, and had gone to the trouble of ensuring breakfast that morning, and was leaning forward in his chair with a worried expression as if waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were.

“For the record,” Hux said as he picked up his toast again, “I really, really like you, and I want to continue seeing you. I just…” he closed his eyes hard and opened them again, “Don’t understand how.”

“None of us know how, exactly, or why,” Enric said after sighing with relief, “The story the Fathers have passed through history is that once, in the days of ancient Babylon, there lived a powerful sorcerer who became known as the Grandfather. He lived for centuries, may even still live today, and over the centuries he chose nine mortals to make like him, into vampires, and they became the Fathers. Tarkin is a Father. My Father. An ancient Roman general and senator who met me at a party at Vauxhall Gardens in 1792, took me to bed, and asked me if I wanted to live forever. I was 63 in the 18th century, there were a million maddeningly common ways to die that don’t exist anymore, and so I said yes.”

Hux took in the information, noticing there was a pot of tea and cups now on the coffee table, and poured himself some. After a sip, he said,

“And everyone who lives here with you, you made them. Your strays you’ve collected.”

Enric nodded. “They all have magnificent stories to tell you, if you’ll spend time with them and listen.”

“I’m most interested in yours.”

“And I’ll tell you, all of it, in time, if you stick around long enough.”

“And you’re hoping that I’ll stick around forever?”

“I,” Enric coughed, “I wouldn’t be adverse to it. You’d be the first of my turnings I’ve fallen for, the first I’ve slept with, but there’s a first time for everything.”

“That’s...something I’m going to have to really think about, Enric,” said Hux, “You understand, right?”

“Of course I understand,” he said, coming to sit beside Hux, “It’s a literal life-and-death decision. You could take the next ten years to decide and I wouldn’t blame you a bit for taking that long.”

Hux nodded, “Thank you for being so good about it.”

“Thank you for not running screaming,” Enric reached for his hand.

Hux took it, “I’m in Behavioral Analysis,” he said, “In the end I’ve seen a lot of worse and unbelievable things that top an old fairy tale turning out to be true.”

He looked in Enric’s eyes and smiled.

Well, it was settled, then, Hux thought, I’m dating a vampire.

Talk about an age difference.


	6. Chapter 6

Enric had some business-related something to take care of before he could drive Hux home, so the young man decided to explore the gardens of the coven’s house. They were lush and green, full of butterflies and hummingbirds and songbirds and all manner of life, heady with the scent of flowers mixing together in the warmth of June.

“Want a tour?” Tishra was standing behind him in a black gauze dress and brocade corset, a very large black sun hat on her head.

“I’d like that,” he smiled.

“This is the pollinator garden,” she said, gesturing to the wild-looking, cottagey stretch of flowers stretching along the front of the building, “The bees like it best. I prefer a mixed wildflower honey for my mead. The profile’s a little different every year.”

“I don’t know anything about flowers,” Hux said, “But they’re all beautiful.”

She smiled.

She led him around a corner to a place where a gazebo was surrounded by vines and bushes with closed buds.

“This is the lunar garden,” she said, “Everything here only blooms at night. It’s a perfect place to sit at dusk and watch the hummingbird hawk moths come out.”

“When did you fall in love with plants?” He asked as he followed her through a shady tunnel of fruit trees.

“I used to lay in my mother’s garden for hours,” she said, “Before the famine. When Enric made me what I am, I became a touch-know. I can feel the energy of things. I can touch soil and know what it lacks. I can touch plants and know what they need.”

“That’s...magnificent,” he said, then ventured, “What famine?”

She laughed, “The only famine anyone ever talks about in Irish history.”

“Oh,” he said solemnly.

“Here are my bees,” she said, gesturing to a pair of white hives, “I love them so much. I’ve had them for ten years. They make the best honey, which makes the best mead.”

“I can’t wait to try it.”

“I’ll definitely send you home with a bottle,” she said, “I still have some of the rose mead that matured this winter. I have to hide it or Frantis drinks it all.”

“Which one is Frantis?”

“You haven’t met him yet,” she said, “He was the first addition to the coven. Enric met him in France during the Revolution.”

“Does everyone have some epic story?”

“I wouldn’t call them all epic,” she said, “But we were all strays. Set upon by fate. Saved, by our sire,” she smiled, “Let me show you his roses.”

The first of the roses were pink and many-petaled, falling in an arbor over a wooden gate that Tishra opened for Hux. Inside, the smell of rose was overwhelming.

Armitage had no idea there were so many varieties. So many colors.

“Persian,” Tishra gestured to a low, yellow variety with few petals, “He makes rosewater with those. Black magic, the stereotypical one,” she pointed out deep red ones with a burgundy veil to them that looked almost true black, “Michael Crawford,” a yellow fading into peach, “Neil Diamond,” salmon streaked with white, “Violet Carson,” pale purple.

“Who knew there were so many kinds of rose?” Hux turned in a slow circle, taking everything in.

“You won’t find any of these at the hardware store,” came Enric’s voice from the other side of the gate, and then he stepped through, “This is the best time of year for them, too. I’m glad you got to see it for the first time in all its glory.”

“It’s impressive. And you do all the gardening yourself?”

Tishra quietly excused herself.

“I do,” said Enric, “I collect the hips in the fall, as well, and make dozens of things out of them. The kitchen still functions. There was always the possibility we’d find someone who would want to live with us for a while before turning. Like Kitty.”

“Who’s Kitty?”

Enric gestured to the roof.

The distant sound of hammering, that Hux hadn’t even noticed, stopped, and a girl in a tied black gingham shirt and a black cowboy hat leaned over the railing, “Hi Enric! Is this the guy from the other night?” She had an adorable country accent.

“Yes, he is!” Enric called back, “Are you almost done up there?”

“Yep!” She replied, “Just gotta spread the tar on.”

“Shall we?” Enric asked Hux, gesturing to the nearby door back into the house.

Hux nodded, “How long did she live with you?”

“Nine years,” he said, “She was sixteen when we found her. Mixed up in a cult in California in the 1960s. It’s forbidden to turn a child, and vampires have always been able to sense that people have been children long after they were believed to be adults by society. No self-respecting vampire will turn someone under twenty-five.”

“Why not?”

“You’re in Behavioral Analysis,” he said, “You tell me.”

“The brain isn’t fully developed,” said Hux, “How have you all known that? And why didn’t you say something?”

“It’s just something certain vampires have the gift of sensing. Like how Nastia can smell cancer in someone’s body. But without any scientific proof, it has been rather difficult to convince others of until recently.”

Hux nodded.

“And imagine the cruelty, Armitage. Of trapping someone in a child’s body or a child’s brain while their soul becomes an adult’s. Only an adult can make the informed choice to live forever.”

They walked down a hallway toward the door where they had entered the night before.

“Forever, unless…”

“Unless something happens, yes,” Enric nodded, “Bring your colleague Wednesday night. We’ll discuss these terrible happenings. Maybe we can bring the one responsible to justice, together.”

Hux took his hand and squeezed gently, “I hope so. I’d like to hear their stories, too. The two you lost.”

“You will,” he kissed Hux’s forehead, “Well, I suppose I should take you home.”

“Hold up!” Tishra was at one end of the hallway, and then, suddenly, as if she had teleported, she was in front of Hux, holding a bottle of mead.

Hux blinked. “How did you do that?”

“We don’t all have the same abilities, but we’re all uncommonly sharp in senses, and we’re all able to move with uncommon speed if we so choose. We’re also not bad climbers.” Enric smirked a bit.

She winked and handed Hux the bottle.

“Thank you so much,” he said, “I can’t wait to try this.”

In the car, Enric asked Hux what he thought of those he had met so far.

“Fascinating people,” he said, “Even more fascinating knowing they’ve all lived such long lives, longer than natural in some cases. I look forward to getting to know them all.”

“And maybe even being one of them one day?” Enric asked hopefully.

“Maybe,” Hux said with a bit of a smile.

Maybe.


	7. Chapter 7

“What are you listening to?”

Hux took out one earbud and looked over to Rose Tico, the closest thing he had to a real friend. 

“The most amazing song,” he said almost rapturously, “It’s this ten-minute epic I don’t even know what called This Corrosion. Have you ever listened to Sisters of Mercy?”

She shook her head. 

“I honestly didn’t know music could sound like this,” he said, “I really do need to get out more.”

“Yeah, Armie, there’s a whole world of music out there aside from instrumentals to study to and whatever was on the radio when you were in high school,” she teased him, “Is this more goth stuff from your boyfriend?”

Boyfriend. It seemed like such a common word, to describe something so very uncommon as what existed between him and Enric even after a week. But he supposed time moved strangely when you no longer had to worry about it running out. 

“Yeah, it’s more gothic rock,” he replied, “I’m starting to realize I am very much a goth.”

“Well you can tell me about it while we get ready,” she said, nudging his shoulder. 

He nodded and logged off of his computer before standing to follow her, slinging a messenger bag over his shoulder. 

In a side conference room, the outfit he had wor. Last week was laying, freshly laundered, next to a long dress with lavish sleeves and a velvet overbust corset. 

“I brought accessories,” Hux said, setting down his bag and opening it up to produce a smaller bag, the contents of which he spread out across the table, “I borrowed these from Tishra for you. People really notice when you don’t accessorize. It feels like being naked.”

Rose ran her fingers over a lace choker set with a deep purple crystal and framed by pewter skeleton hands. 

“I guess it’s kind of weird that millions of people watch true crime and think about murder but we draw the line at black lipstick, huh?” She asked. 

“Exactly,” Hux said as he began to change his clothes, “Today, at least, Goth is a thousand different things. For Enric and his friends, it’s kind of like...a commentary on the state of the world. Like. If the elite are going to shut themselves behind walls and party while the world goes to hell, and the average person is powerless to stop it, the least that average person can do is be so shamelessly decadent and decayed that the behavior of that callous elite has nothing on them. If you can’t beat them, put them to shame.”

“And you think you want to be a part of that? Hey all involved in it, commit to the lifestyle and the aesthetic and all that?”

Hux straightened up and went to help Rose tie her corset laces, “I honestly do. I’ve never felt as comfortable as I have around these people. In their spaces. In these clothes. Around this music. And I’m a little upset, because if I had been less repressed as a teenager I could’ve had twenty years of practice with the eyeliner by now,” he laughed. 

She giggled a little. 

A little bit of makeup and hair teasing later, they turned to look at one another. 

“Wow,” said Rose, “You certainly look like you’ve been doing this for 20 years.”

“Yeah, the jewelry really sells it,” he said, looking down at the two rings on his fingers that he had borrowed from Enric, “You ready?”

Rose looked like she could be one of Enric’s younger strays, a sister to Tishra, in her elegant gown. 

“I think so,” she smiled.

Hux felt different, entering the club this time. It felt less foreign, more familiar, almost welcoming. He looked the part as he led Rose upstairs, pulled her past the curtains, and introduced her to Enric, who stood to welcome her.

Frantis, Tishra, and Trach all departed, leaving Bellava at her post.

“So you’re the boyfriend,” Rose said as she sat down. Hux took the space beside Enric, while she took the space across from him.

“That would be me,” Enric smirked, “I assure you, every hair-raising story he’s told you about me is true.”

Hux laughed.

“I should hope he doesn’t have too many hair-raising stories after a week,” Rose laughed as well, “You seem to have made quite an impression on him.”

“Yes, well, it makes an impression, doesn’t it?” He gestured with the hand that held his cigarette, “All the black and the burgundy and the velvet, the music, the smoke, the ambience...If I wanted to make a subtle impression, I’d wear a polo shirt and khakis and play The Rolling Stones.”

“I’d love to talk about why,” she said, “But maybe we should save that for after serious business.”

“Yes,” he said, “Every evening is an anxious one, but still, we have to go on living our lives, don’t we? But the question is, are we safe?”

“Well, policing in this neighborhood has absolutely stepped up in response to the deaths, but I understand your fear,” she said, “Is there anything you noticed on those particular nights that was out of the ordinary?”

“With all due respect, Ms. Tico, I’ve answered that question already, and you can find it in several files, I’m certain. What I want to know is who exactly are we looking for? What sort of person? What can you tell me about their profile?”

“Why would we share that information with you?” She narrowed her eyes a little.

“Don’t you think it better if we know what to watch out for?”

“You could also do something rash, like take things into your own hands.”

“Oh, I assure you, dear, if I happen to catch this murderer in the act, there won’t be much of him left for the FBI to examine. But we don’t go looking for trouble. I just want to have a picture in my head of what exactly I need to look for coming through my door.”

She nodded, “Well, unfortunately, he won’t be coming through your door. He disdains you. He would never lower himself to do so, even in an effort to kill you or someone like you. He sees nonconformists as subhuman, as filth that needs wiping from the earth.”

Enric’s lip twitched. Hux touched his knee beneath the table in attempt to soothe him. The older man took a long drag from his cigarette and held in the smoke for a moment before exhaling.

“You’ve told me more than you think you have, Ms. Tico,” he said, “Please excuse us for a moment. Have a drink, on me. I promise, if you come back in five minutes, I’ll be in a much more agreeable mood.”

She nodded and stood, passing through the curtains and moving down the hallway. 

“What is it?” Hux asked.

“What I had been afraid of all along. I had been hoping it was just a coincidence that whoever killed Dopheld and Thranisson managed to kill them.”

“Coincidence?”

“Well, you drain all a vampire’s blood, it will die, just like a human,” he said, “I had hoped it was just that the serial killer liked exsanguinating things, but now...Now I’m absolutely certain. Whoever is doing this is a vampire hunter. They’re just killing humans to cover their tracks.”

“There are actual vampire hunters?”

“As surely as there are actual vampires,” Enric nodded.

“Then we have to do something,” Hux said, “The FBI most likely isn’t equipped to.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said his lover, “But enough for now. If they follow their pattern, they’ll go after a human next, and as much as I hate to be callous, I’m less concerned about that.”

Hux nodded, chewing on his lip.

Rose returned a moment later, and they passed the rest of the night in pleasant conversation. She left around eleven, asking if Hux wanted a ride, but he had made up his mind to go home with Enric some time ago.


	8. Chapter 8

Relaxed, a glass and a half of wine in, Hux leaned on the back of Enric’s sofa, gnawing on a question he was dying to ask and finally let out into the open.

“How does it work? Sex, I mean.”

Enric shrugged. “No one knows exactly. It’s something of a mystery. Those with ovaries no longer have cycles, those like me no longer produce viable sperm, but something vestigial remains that allows the functions of sex. Some versions of the mythology state that the Grandfather was granted his immortality by Ereshkigal, that he might visit her in the Underworld and be her lover when her husband Nergal was absent at war. If that’s true, the goddess would’ve had a vested interest in keeping things functioning. But no one really knows if that’s true. All we know is as long as we feed within the hour before we plan to, everything seems to work properly, just without the risk of reproduction.”

“It’s all very weird,” Hux said apologetically, “It’s really hard to wrap my mind around. In a week, I’ve had my understanding of life and death and science and fable completely turned on its head.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Enric, took his hand, “Thank you for even trying.”

“I’m intoxicated by you,” said the younger man, “You have me utterly charmed. I think there’s nothing I wouldn’t try to understand if it meant I could stay at your side.”

The older man squeezed Hux’s hand lightly.

“Shall we actually make it to the bed, tonight?” He asked.

Hux snickered, “Yes, I think so. Your bed is awfully comfortable.”

“And what are you in the mood for tonight?”

“You asked me what I wanted last time,” Hux said, “I want to know what you want.”

Enric smirked and leaned in to purr in the ginger’s ear, “I want to lay you back and caress every inch of you. Then I want to taste your blood as it courses with wine and look into your eyes as I fuck you until you can’t take it anymore and collapse in my arms.”

“I think I could enjoy that,” Hux’s voice was breathless.

“Then come, child,” Enric stood and held out his hand, “Let me have my way.”

In the low light of Enric’s room, the two men slowly undressed one another, revealing two tall and slender bodies that began to entwine almost immediately. Though only one was the nocturnal predator, each was equally hungry for the other, and they fell onto the bed lost in ravenous kisses that neither shied away from punctuating with insistent teeth.

Hux let himself be laid back tenderly on the velvet and fur, his senses teeming with candlelight and incense smoke, as Enric kissed from the pit of his throat to the place where he had bitten him Saturday that had nearly healed. He pierced the wounds anew and the sedative feeling washed over the young man again; he relaxed into it and let it wash over him and subside as Enric’s hands, warming with the fresh blood, ran along his sides to his hips and gripped possessively.

“You’re all mine now, boy, do you understand? I’m never letting you go, if I have to enthrall you with all my power, I’ll never let you free.”

Hux knew Enric well enough by now to know his words were fantasy, but they were a fantasy that made him bite his lip in pleasure, made his cock grow harder as the older man began to kiss him again, Hux’s own blood across his tongue.

Then Enric lowered his head to kiss across the ginger’s collarbone, down his chest to his nipples where his tongue teased and left filmy red streaks of the last of the blood in his mouth. Then he sat up on his hips and raked his nails down the soft, sensitive flesh of Hux’s stomach, making the young man squirm.

Enric leaned to the bedside table for a moment, and Hux closed his eyes in pleasant anticipation.

One finger first, then two, then at last three, slid slickly into his hole and probed and stretched the nerve-rich skin as Enric’s other hand wrapped around his conquest’s cock. Hux felt the steel eyes on him and had to open his own to make contact, letting loose a shiver as he rested in the intensity of their cold fire. 

“Please,” he whispered, biting the heel of his hand for a moment, “Please, Enric.”

The older man snickered and replaced his hand with his slick cock.

“Don’t look away from me, boy.”

Hux nodded and met his eyes again.

Enric leaned forward, covering the soft body beneath him with his own form, an arm cradling Hux’s head as he began to move into him with slow, fluid, luxurious strokes that gave them both waves of true pleasure. The helpless young man’s cock twitched and seeped fluid as it lay between them, caught in the friction of their bodies against one another. All the while, their eyes locked, every movement of pupil noticed, every blink counted, their breath beginning to synchronize.

Enric held himself back with gritted teeth, reaching between them to stroke Hux’s cock until he came with a cry, only letting his own release come after he had ridden out the other’s orgasm and left him tensing and relaxing, and caught him in another kiss.

“You are the most decadent indulgence a jaded old lush could dream of,” whispered Enric before rolling off of the young man and pulling him close.

“You’re something I didn’t even think could be real,” Hux buried his face in Enric’s neck, “Someone I’d want to see again in the morning. And who would want to see me.”

“My poor child,” the older man held him tightly, “Whoever made you think the world was such a barren and loveless place?”

“I’ll tell you,” Hux said, “Someday.”

“When you’re ready,” Enric nuzzled him, “For now, sleep. I’ve well and truly drained you tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I’m gonna take a break on this. I have plans to expand this into a full-on, 50,000 word plus story, possibly during NaNoWriMo, but for now I want to dabble in some other AUs and I have some other fics I want to work on, including a Batman one I need to wrap up. Prepare yourself for werewolves because that’s up next.


	9. Chapter 9

“So, do they, like, just not listen to or read or watch anything that isn’t goth?”

Rose asked it over a table in the work cafeteria, and Hux rolled his eyes.

“No, Rose,” he said, “It’s not a cult. It’s a lifestyle choice. They watch and read and listen to whatever they feel like on a given day, just like normal people. They just tend to gravitate toward...gothic things.”

“Gothic things being?”

“Well, the music I’ve been playing you,” he said, “Or other music that’s dark or spooky. Books like actual gothic novels - did you know we even have detective fiction nowadays because of gothic authors? - horror movies, sometimes old, sometimes modern. Things that everyone else likes but just doesn’t quite take so far as to turn it into a lifestyle choice, you get?”

She nodded, pulling her straw out of her smoothie and eating a chunk of unblended mango stuck to the end, “I’m getting it more than I was,” she said, “I just don’t fully understand why someone would feel the need to dress like that all the time. I feel like it would get exhausting.”

“Do you ever get exhausted wearing a suit every day?”

“Well, no.”

“See? If it’s your wardrobe and you have it around, it’s not exhausting.”

“But that corset,” she said, “I couldn’t wear a corset every single day.”

“Well you’ve got to remember, Tishra grew up in a time when everyone-“

Hux stopped himself. Shit.

“When everyone what?”

“Well, I mean, women were still wearing girdles and whatnot in the 1980s, right?” Nice recovery, idiot.

“Oh,” Rose nodded, “Yeah, probably. I guess we all wear spanx these days and that’s not much different.”

“See? It all makes a lot more sense when you start to think about it for a while.”

“So, you,” she said, “You gonna start doing the goth thing all the time, now?”

“Well, obviously, I’ve got to dress like this for work, but I have been going to the club a couple of nights a week, trying out different things, ordering clothes of my own. I love the music, both the stuff Enric has me listening to and the more recent stuff the others have been playing for me. I’ve rediscovered that I like Poe, which I haven’t read since I had to for school, and I’ve been watching the Vincent Price Poe adaptations, and they’re not accurate by any means, but they’re great fun.”

“So...Armie is a goth,” she smirked, “Who’d have thunk it?”

“Enric claims he had me pegged from the beginning.”

“That’s getting pretty serious, isn’t it? You two?”

Hux hesitated before nodding, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is.”

“Pretty sure? Come on, if you’re sure, you’re sure.”

“You know me, I never trust anyone, even you half the time,” he said, “It’s serious for me, he says it’s serious for him, but I’m still never completely sure.”

“Well, you’ll have to trust him at some point, won’t you?”

“I already do in a lot of ways. I mean, we’ve done some things and talked about things that I would never have done or talked about if I didn’t trust him to a certain extent.”

“It’s good that you’re opening up in those respects, at least,” she said before slurping up the last of her smoothie loudly enough that he winced, “That’s the foundation of a relationship, you know.”

“Yeah,” he said, sighing and looking off rather dreamily.

“Hello?” She waved her hand over his eyes, “Earth to Armie. Come in, Armie.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Just got a little lost in thought.”

“About what?” She leaned in.

He bit his lip a little and turned pink.

“Oooh,” she laughed, “Is it good? Like, is it that good? You get zoned out randomly when you remember it good?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” he said, “Really good. He bites.”

“How hard?”

“Hard,” said Hux, “There’s been blood.”

“Blood?” She asked silently, mouthing it, “That’s kinky. That’s like, super kinky.”

“Blood isn’t that kinky,” he waved his hand dismissively, then leaned in, “Is it?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty damn kinky.”

He retreated into his collar a bit, “I guess it doesn’t really seem like it in the moment. You know? It just kind of happens and it makes sense when it happens, and you don’t really think about how kinky it is until you start talking about it with someone else.”

“I get that,” she nodded, “Sometimes you get used to something and then you ask someone new about it and they look at you like you’re crazy.”

“Oh, really?” It was his turn to pry, “What does Rose have up her sleeve that has been scaring off dates?”

“Hey, I just like to have my hair pulled, that’s all. Sometimes people don’t pull my hair hard enough. When that happens, sometimes, when I ask them to pull harder, they look at me like I’ve grown another head.”

He laughed, “Innocent little Rose likes her hair pulled,” he teased her, “You never told me that when we were dating.”

She blushed and looked down, murmuring, “I might’ve discovered it by accident a couple of years ago,” she said.

“I discovered the blood thing by accident, believe me,” he said, thinking back to the first morning he woke up at Enric’s.

“Funny how that happens,” she pulled out her phone, “Oh, shit, I’m late for a meeting about the Viper thing. See you, Armie,” she grabbed her bag and her trash and rushed out, flinging the trash into the bin as she did.

Hux decided to check his phone, as well. Looking down, he saw he had a text from Enric.

“Dinner tonight?” It read, “I feel like vomiting up oysters.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Hux replied, “I’ve yet to see you eat actual food.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve figured out this is going to have 13 chapters. We’re drawing near the end! This has been so fun to write and I plan to expand it during NaNoWriMo.

“Oh, God, that’s good,” said Enric as he set an empty shell back down into the platter of ice, “This is definitely worth it.”

“What’s the occasion?” Hux asked, “You said you normally saved eating for special occasions.”

“Well, it’s our one month anniversary,” the older man said with a smile, “But mostly I just haven’t had oysters in about a year and they sounded too good to pass up.”

Hux laughed a little. “So sometimes the cravings just get to you.”

“I’m terrible at resisting my cravings. The number of times I call you over in the middle of the night should be proof enough of that. 

Hux blushed. 

“What about the craving for blood? How often do you have to have it?”

“For ordinary vampires, once a week or so,” he said, “We’re predators; we rest for long periods and hunt sparingly, and consume enough to last us a while. Like a snake.”

“What do you mean, for ordinary vampires?”

“We’re all gifted a hereditary power from our Father’s line when we turn,” he took a sip of champagne, “My bloodline can sustain ourselves on psychic energy.”

“So that’s why you run a club.”

Enric smirked. 

“Yes, that’s why. The energy of people having a good time has a better feeling than, say, an angry mob would. We have the opportunity to glut ourselves, and all that happens is people feel a little extra hungover in the morning.”

“And me?”

“Oh, no one else feeds off of you,” he said, “You’re all mine.”

The way he said it made Hux shiver. 

“But you do need blood sometimes. Like sex.”

He nodded. “In those cases, Nastia keeps a supply for us. A bag here and there from the hospitals where she works. Never during a shortage, never a rare blood type, just the occasional delicacy. And there are a surprising number of people who, when told they’re in the presence of a vampire, will volunteer a pint.”

“So you don’t hunt humans for blood? You don’t...kill people?”

Enric scoffed as he picked up another oyster, “Don’t be ridiculous, that’s barbaric. We’re not murderers, just bloodsuckers. Besides, with agencies like yours these days, it’s very difficult to sustain a trail of victims. The ones who do hunt humans usually only do so in places where there is no such infrastructure. But the vast majority of us look down upon them as unevolved. They’re all from the same bloodline, and their Father never trained them better.”

Hux laughed. “So its a little like parenting?”

“If you do it right,” he tipped the oyster back into his mouth and groaned again, swallowing, “Now stop distracting me, I need to enjoy myself before I have to go pretend I have a midlife eating disorder.”

Hux snorted.

Enric looked particularly pale after his episode, but was still chipper, and wasted no time in asking Hux to accompany him home.

Some time later, lying naked in bed, Hux traced the older man’s collarbone with his fingertips and asked, “What would you do? If I wanted to leave?”

“Be devastated,” Enric looked him in the eye, “Miss you forever.”

“What would you want to do?”

Enric’s blue eyes glinted. “Tie you to this very bed and keep you so drained and weak you can barely move, have my fill of you each night and wait for the day you beg me to turn you so that you’ll be forever bound to me.”

Hux bit his lip. “That does sound rather fun.”

“Perhaps over a long weekend,” Enric kissed him softly, “It could be a fun game.”

“I would have to place a lot of trust in you.”

“That doesn’t come easily for you, does it?”

Hux shook his head.

“I’m flattered about the trust I’ve received so far.”

“You’ve been honest,” he said, “That goes a long way. I didn’t grow up around very forthright people. We didn’t talk about anything. You talk about everything.”

“Buttoned-up family?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “Beyond that, even. My father was...not nice.”

“Neither was mine,” Enric said, “I’ve had a lot longer to come to terms with it, though.”

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Hux asked, “To have that long to process what’s happened to you. Then you could finally start living.”

“You could have that.”

Hux shifted, turning more of his body toward Enric, “I know I could. And it’s not that I don’t want it. I just want to be absolutely certain.”

“I know,” Enric touched his cheek, “Take your time.”

“I’d like to take my time,” he said with a bit of a smirk.

“Oh, again?” Enric smirked back at him, “I could be persuaded to indulge you.”

“I’ll beg like a good boy,” he whispered.

“Mm, go one then,” the older man gripped the younger’s chin, “Beg me.”

“Please, Daddy,” Hux managed to make his face look so enticingly innocent that Enric groaned, “Please let me suck you. I’m starving for you.”

“I don’t think you want it enough.”

“Please! Please, I’ll make it so good for you…”

“Mm, go ahead, then,” he leaned back onto the pillows and ran his fingers through Hux’s red hair.

The boy was good at it, there was no denying it. Earnest and worshipful, hungry and ever desperate for approval. His past clearly played out in his fantasies, but it was a road Enric was happy to help him navigate safely. He only hoped they would have decades, centuries of this ahead of them.

And God, he looked good, gazing up from his place, full lips wrapped around Enric, braced on the bed. Such a beautiful creature, more than beautiful, ethereal, as if he already was more than human.

After he came, Enric pulled the young man into his arms and stroked his throbbing cock until he came, then licked him clean. Well and truly exhausted, they crawled beneath the velvet cover and entwined with one another, breathing in tandem as they drifted off.

The crash of a broken window woke them scarcely an hour later.


	11. Chapter 11

The broken window belonged to Frantis. By the time Hux and Enric burst in wearing robes, the man had extinguished the fire of the thrown Molotov cocktail and his skin was re-growing itself where his arm had been burnt.

“What in heaven’s name?” Hux asked.

Enric’s face was set in stone, “Our stalker, I presume.”

“This was meant to scare, not to kill,” said Bellava from the doorway, in a pair of white silk pajamas, “Meant to draw us out,” she laughed, “He thinks he can beat us.”

Nastia came running in, stumbling over her own leg as she frantically pulled on a boot over her black jeans.

“What is it?” Enric asked.

Nastia grinned wickedly.

“I’ve got his scent.”

Enric broke into a run back to his room. By the time Hux caught up with him, the man was half-dressed already.

“Enric,” Hux said in a warning tone, “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, you can’t.”

“Oh, can’t I?” He said with a growl.

“Enric, you have to let us handle this. I’ll call Rose. We can take care of this. We can find him and arrest him and-“

“Arrest?” Enric’s voice was raised, “Do you honestly believe after nearly three hundred years I hold any faith in your pathetic system of justice? I have my own code, Armitage, and I must follow it. My blood lies dead, and I will take blood in kind.”

“If you do this, I don’t know if I can stay.”

“Then you can’t stay,” Enric said, turning to him. He put his hands on his shoulders, “My sweet boy, I respect your convictions and I would never ask you to compromise them. But I have to have vengeance, and beyond that, I will provide safety for my family by any means necessary.”

“What...what are you going to do?”

“What he did to Dopheld and Thanisson,” he said matter-of-factly, “Poison him and drain his blood.”

“I’m not...I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it,” said Hux.

“Just that you can’t condone it, as an agent of the FBI,” Enric kissed his cheek and pulled him close, “I understand, my darling. And I will miss you until time and times are done.”

Then he turned and left Armitage standing in the empty room, pulling on his jacket as he went.

This was it. This was the moment Hux had been dreading; the moment he had to decide, forever, what his path would be. He had deluded himself into thinking he could keep a foot in both worlds this whole time, but now...now, he couldn’t deny it any longer.

Kitty walked into the room.

“I can take you home,” she said, a bit of sorrow in her voice.

Hux looked up at her, then down at his clothing on the floor. His gun sat with it, in its usual holster. He picked it up and checked the magazine.

“No,” he said firmly, “No, I’m going with him.”  
**  
“So, hallowed ground doesn’t bother you?” Hux asked Enric quietly as they stepped onto the lawn of an abandoned church deep in the most decayed part of the city.

“Please,” Enric scoffed, “A number of us live in churches for the irony.”

Bellava kicked the door open as they reached the top of the stairs. It was silent inside the vestibule, and so they passed into the nave.

The man they sought stood at the church’s altar, surrounded by floodlights and implements of his gruesome hobby. In one hand, he held a pair of syringes rigged to a single plunger.

His face was arrested with shock, and when he seemed able to move again, he pulled a cross charm from his shirt and began to speak rapidly in Latin.

Enric walked toward him slowly, down the central aisle between the pews. The others fell in step behind him, Hux at their flank, raising his firearm to a height, in case of sudden movement.

“tuque, Princeps militiae caelestis,  
Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,  
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,  
divina virtute, in infernum detrude!”*

The words of the murderer rang through the vaulted ceiling of the room, and Enric stopped for a moment.

He looked around the room as if searching for something, and then asked, “Well? Where is he? Where is your angel? Can you conjure forth Saint Michael, fool, to protect you?”

Before Hux could blink, Enric was crouched on top of the altar, holding the man by the throat.

“Get behind me, Satan!” Screamed the man, “I have come to wipe the demons from this earth and prepare it for the last days!”

“Enric!” Hux called as he hurried up after him, along with the others, “He’s just a sick fanatic, leave him to us.”

“No,” Enric shook his head, “No, you’re more than that, aren’t you?” He asked the man, “This is just a plea for mercy. A poor one.”

The man began to laugh. “Go ahead,” he said, “Kill me, vampire. Another will take my place.”

“Oh, really?” Enric asked, moving his mouth near the man’s ear, “Do you promise? Because he’ll be fun to kill, too.”

Bellava appeared at his side, wrenching the syringe from the man’s hand and stabbing him in the throat with it, pressing down the plunger and filling him with the poison. He went limp in Enric’s grip.

“There, you’ve killed him,” said Hux, “Now let’s go.”

“Oh no,” Enric said, crouching down and almost tenderly picking up the body to lay it on the altar, “No, this poison doesn’t kill. It leaves you conscious, doesn’t it, my dear friend,” he stroked the man’s hair, “Because you hate us, and you want us to suffer. But you’re no warrior, so you snuck in the shadows and picked off the weakest. And you watched as you drained their blood, saw in their eyes as they felt fear, and despair, and the absence of hope. And I…” he stood to his full height and retrieved the two-pronged puncturing tool the man had used on his victims, “I’m going to watch all of that go through your mind, now.”

“Enric…” Hux whispered.

“You can go, if watching this provides too much of a conflict of interest for you,” he said, not looking at the young man, “You will not stop me.”

Hux held his gun up slightly. He could shoot the man now. Prevent his lover from doing this. Prevent this from escalating any further. Just, end it.

Or he could let Enric have his vengeance.

For a moment, he was at a complete loss as to what he should do.

And then, suddenly, like a wave of calm, he knew.  
**  
“Armitage?”

Rose came barreling up to his cubicle, “Armie, we need to talk.”

“What’s the matter?” He asked.

“This new victim,” she was panting from running, “He matches the Viper’s profile.”

“And?” He asked. Of course the new victim did.

“No,” she rolled her eyes, “He fits the Viper’s profile. He’s a religious kook who hates noncomformists. He’s bombed women’s clinics, sent hate mail to politicians, he’s exactly the kind of person we expected to be committing the murders.”

“Maybe someone fought back,” Hux shrugged.

“No,” she said again, “Someone killed him the exact same way he killed the others. We think a copycat killed the actual Viper.”

“Well what a shame,” Hux looked at her with sarcasm dripping from his voice, “It couldn’t have happened to a better person.”

“Hux,” she gripped his shoulders, “I need you to tell me what you know. What did your boyfriend and his friends do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lying to me. You were over at his place last night. You took an oath, Armitage. You have to follow it. Tell me what happened.”

“About the oath,” he gestured to his desk, on which sat a cardboard box full of the few personal items he had been keeping on it, “It’s no longer valid.”

She stepped back, shocked, “You’re...you’re leaving?”

He nodded.

“Why? For him? For a weirdo who takes the law into his own hands?”

“If you had any proof of that, you’d have arrested him.”

“Don’t expect me to let this go just because you’re gone, Armitage.”

“I don’t expect you to let it go,” he said, “But I also don’t expect you to ever close this case.”

She sighed. “Yeah,” she crossed her arms, “Yeah, I really don’t either.”

“I guess this is goodbye, then, Rose.”

“I hope not,” she said, “I hope it’s more...you know, see you around?”

“As long as you’re not snooping around.”

She gave him a look, “I’m going to do my job, Armie.”

“I expect you to,” he said, “I wouldn’t expect any less.”

She held out her hand, “I’m going to miss you.”

He shook it, “I’m going to miss you, too.”

He gathered his things and made for the elevator.

As he rode it down, his hair stood on end. He had fear this wasn’t the end of the ordeal, but he knew, at least, that he had made the right decision. He walked out of the open doors and across the lobby for the last time, turning back to look over his shoulder before he stepped outside.

Enric’s car was there, waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *And do thou, o Prince of the heavenly host,  
> By the power of God,  
> Cast into hell Satan and all who prowl throughout the world  
> Seeking the ruin of souls
> 
> Catholic prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel


	12. Epilogue

The coven sat in a circle in a room at the back of their club, a room draped in black and full of flickering candles. Hux stood in the center of the circle, facing Enric, who sat in the largest chair, at the apex of the circle.

“Armitage Hux,” Enric said, “Do you swear that in joining this family, you place the lives of your fellow members above all others?”

“I do,” Hux nodded.

“Do you promise to treat your fellow members as your own blood, for blood we shall be?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise to keep the secrets of the coven sacred, for they are your own secrets?”

“I do.”

“And do you promise to uphold our code, and eschew the hunting of humankind?”

“I do.”

“Then step forward,” Enric stood.

This was it.

Hux entered the vampire’s embrace, long arms folding around him as Enric’s head lowered to the young man’s throat, and he bit down on the vein.

He groaned as he tasted his lover’s blood, sucking until the young man was nearly drained, limp as he supported his back.

And then he bit his own wrist, and offered it to Hux.

Hux placed his lips around the punctures and sucked. At first, it tasted terrible, metallic and salty, utterly wrong, but then…

But then, it began to change. He began to notice the subtleties in the flavor, it began to appeal to him, and suddenly he found himself craving it, sucking ravenously until Enric pulled his wrist away.

The grey-haired man held him as his body died, and was reborn, through all the pain and revelation.

When Hux opened his eyes, he grinned.

“I can feel...I can see...I can smell...everything,” he said with a rapturous sigh.

“Welcome to the night, my sweet boy,” Enric kissed him deeply, their blood mingling on one another’s tongues.

The others came forward and embraced Hux one by one, and he returned their sentiments.

“Welcome home,” said Tishra with a warm smile.

“I feel at home,” he said, “For the first time.”

How strange it was, to be lounging at the table with Enric and the others, fully belonging in contrast to his clumsy arrival in this world.

It felt right.


End file.
